Free The Atlantic Abomination by John Brunner Page B

to believe that this is all due to scientific curiosity. I think somebody’s not just worried, but frightened!”
    Gordon paused and fixed her with his eyes. “Frightened?” he said solemnly. “Yes, you could say that.
    “I told you in my letter that there was no sign of the
Gondwana
. That was only a half-truth. She was reported two days ago by the liner
Queen Alexandra
, thirty hours out from New York for Southampton and Cherbourg.
    “But we haven’t found her again. And now we’ve lost the
Alexandra
, with eighteen hundred passengers aboard. …”

XI
    A T FIRST he had been very weak. Naturally. He had prepared himself for this as he would have prepared for a long trip between the stars, cutting down his metabolism to near-zero, accumulating reserves, planning the trigger which would awaken him when it was once more safe to walk the surface of this world.
    Only he had not bargained for what he found.
    He had come aware with the memories of the fall of his city as fresh in his mind as though they had been yesterday’s. It seemed that no more than hours had gone by since he left that foolish one who had come pleading for help amid the wreck of his hopes, while the earth shook and shivered.
    He was cautious as he reached out mentally into the great dark, prepared to return himself to hibernation if the alarm had been false. It was not.
    Normally he would not have been able to gain much information from a human mind. And this mind, he noted, was altogether similar to those he had known before the cataclysm. It was easier to whip these dull mentalities into speech. Their languages had never conveyed subtleties, but they were so easy to analyse and understand.
    This mind, though, was dulled by a great shock, perhaps unconscious. It offered no hindrance to his inquiry. He was even able to drive it down still further, inhibiting the processes responsible for heartbeats, breathing, digestion, in order to lessen the “noise” he received.
    He was under water, he gathered, and under mud, and stillsecure in his refuge, undiscovered by prying animals. Under water. There was no problem. He had reserves available for just such an eventuality, but the picture he received of the extent and depth of the ocean above him implied that he could not rely on them to get him to land.
    But he must get to land. The myriads, the hordes of human beings crawling and pullulating like bacteria across the face of the planet had never known the lash of one of his kind. Instead of building to the glory of and for the appreciation of higher beings, they served only themselves or each other. This was insupportable. If he could get free, he could take to himself, bit by bit, perhaps half the planet. They were so numerous he could not handle more. Then, and only then, he could see whether any more of his kind had survived, and magnanimously allow them to share what was left. If he was alone, then it would be simple enough to thin the population out to manageable levels.
    This device the man had employed to bring him down here; it would be necessary to utilize that. He gathered facts about it, very slowly because he was weak. Possibly a full day had passed before he had enough facts to formulate a plan. The device would be returning. Let it take back this man, and get rid of its other occupants. Let there be a compulsion in the man’s mind to bring it down by himself. He cautiously opened that floodgate in his mind behind which was stored his power to inflict pain, and judged his available strength. Yes. One of these creatures was as many as he could handle for the time being.
    And while he was awaiting the completion of the order, he would have to burrow out of his hiding place, using up his entire surviving reserves. Which meant that if the man failed to obey his command, he would die as that weakling Ruagh had died. He debated, again measured the pain-giving power he could call on, and decided that it was enough.
    He
hurt
the man to prove it. Yes,